Ambrose Watkins Glen Friday media visit

Ford Racing

Marcos Ambrose (No. 9 Stanley Ford Fusion) has finished second or third in all three of his
Watkins Glen starts at the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series level. Ambrose,
who is still looking for his first NSCS victory, spoke to the media
before today’s practice session.

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THIS
WEEKEND? “I’m looking forward to it. We’ve had a tough month on the
No. 9 Richard Petty Motorsports car, so we’re looking forward to
having a really strong weekend here. We’re a contender, no doubt. We
have done some testing earlier in the year for road course racing. We
haven’t tested recently and really didn’t feel there was a need to
considering the tire that we’re racing on here and the trouble that we
had at Sonoma getting mislead by early testing and then racing a
different tire. So I think we just have to be ready as best we can
here to start practice. I like the format of the weekend. I think
having practice today and getting ready for qualifying will keep me a
little calmer. When you qualify on a Friday sometimes it’s quite a
challenge to feel like you can use practice for getting ready for the
race, you tend to get it ready for qualifying, so I think we just have
to be smart here and tune the car as quick as we can. Hopefully,
we’re close when we roll off the truck, but it’s gonna be a fun
weekend for us and I’m looking forward to it.”

...it’s really about managing tires, about carrying momentum around the whole track.

Marcos Ambrose

WHAT ARE THE
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE TWO ROAD COURSES? “Sonoma is like a bullring
– you’re in everybody’s face all day and you’ve got to try and knock
them around to try and pass, you’re bouncing off curbs and the corners
are short, the track is low grip and there’s not a lot of banking
there in most of the corners, so it really is a difficult place to get
around. You never use top gear, it’s all about low speed, forward
drive and just trying to pass without damaging your car too much.
This place is different. It’s more about finesse. You’re usually
using third or fourth gear a lot around this place, so it’s really
about managing tires, about carrying momentum around the whole track.
You don’t need to be perfect on getting the throttle down, you just
need to carry a lot of momentum through the corner. I like this
place, but I like Sonoma too. They’re both very unique as far as road
racing goes and I think it’s a good balance we have in NASCAR between
the two.”

WHAT’S IT LIKE THE LAST 5-6 LAPS HERE? WHEN DO YOU BECOME
MARCOS AMBROSE RATHER THAN TRYING TO PLAY TO THE END AND PLAY IT
CAUTIOUS? “Part of my problem has been that I’ve been Marcos Ambrose
from the start of the race and I wear my brakes and gear box out, so
you really have to manage your stuff for the first half of the race
and give yourself a chance at the end. Everybody picks up again at
the end of the race because you have to. This is NASCAR. This is
serious business. Late cautions bunch up the field and you know every
position counts, so you have to be super-aggressive. It’s no
different here or Martinsville or Daytona. The end of the races are
the most frantic part of the day as it should be. Road racing
traditionally is different. Standing starts and getting off the line
is normally the most important thing and then the race sort of settles
down and you can manage it. In NASCAR, the way the race is really run
it builds up to a frenzy at the end, so I’m very conscious of just
looking out for my brakes and gear box and getting ourselves to that
last section of the race in good position and just seeing what you can
do. You’re up against the best drivers and they know what to do and
they know how to get you out of the way if you give them a chance, so
it’s aggressive – dangerous as far as getting in accidents and
incidents and spinning off and losing track position – so the end of
the race is all about 100 percent. The first half of the race you
still drive aggressively and keep track position, but you’re trying to
manage your stuff.”

BEFORE SONOMA THERE WAS A LOT OF TALK
ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU THE YEAR BEFORE. DID THAT BOTHER YOU AND
DO YOU WISH THAT WOULD HAVE TOTALLY BEEN AVOIDED AND COMING INTO THIS
WEEKEND THERE’S TALK ABOUT HOW YOU SHOULD CONTEND TO WIN. DOES THAT
AFFECT YOU? “It’s actually been fairly low key this week, which has
been nice. We had a lot of build-up to the Sonoma race. Stanley had
a huge program with $1 million to win for sick kids, plus the pressure
of losing last year’s race, so there was a lot going on. I don’t
think it necessarily affected me, but it was added responsibility
during the week. Here, you’ve just got to run the race. We’ve
finished no worse than third here, I think. I’ve finished no worse
than third in my three tries, so, naturally, you want to win and you
want to win badly, but I don’t think there’s any added pressure this
weekend. I actually felt more relaxed when I came here this week
because I know what I need to feel from the car and I know what I need
to do to be a contender.”

Marcos Ambrose, Petty Motorsport Ford

Photo by: Ashley Dickerson, ASP Inc.

IS IT BETTER TO BE IN THE SPOTLIGHT? “If
you’re in the spotlight it’s good job security, no doubt. Yeah, I
want to be talked about. I want to be up here every week if I could,
but it’s a tough sport. We’ve got a chance to win. I feel good about
standing up and driving my team forward on weekends like this to give
ourselves some confidence and some inspiration to keep lifting our
game. As a driver, when you’re in contention to win like this you
have a leadership role to try and carry that forward and I’m looking
forward to the opportunity.”

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT MISSING THE
NATIONWIDE RACE AND WHY AREN’T YOU IN IT? “I’m gonna go fishing. I
don’t really want to be here on Saturday to watch someone else win my
race. I’ve won it three years in a row, so I’m very disappointed I
didn’t get a chance to do it, but I think it’s a combination of the
economy and just bad timing. I had opportunities to do it, and we
worked hard with RPM to put a team together and a sponsorship package
together and it just didn’t work out. We were pretty close, but it
just didn’t play out. We’ll just try to forget about watching the
Nationwide race. Whoever wins I’ll congratulate them, but I want to
be a long ways away from the track because it’s a race I wanted to do
and thought I had another chance to win.”

WHEN YOU FIRST SHOWED UP
YOU WERE LIKE THE TASMANIAN DEVIL AND PUSHING GUYS OUT OF THE WAY.
THIS SEASON YOU SEEM TO BE LOOKING BIGGER PICTURE AND IT SEEMS YOU’VE
CHANGED YOUR MINDSET TO FOCUS ON THE OVALS. IT LOOKS LIKE YOU’RE LESS
AGGRESSIVE OUT THERE. TRUE? “No, maybe I’m just a bit smarter. The
first year here I was racing for the Wood Brothers and I was trying to
make an impression so I could get an opportunity in the Cup Series, so
you naturally drive differently than what you do when you’re in the
main game full-time, so I was not really caring about a result the
first year here I just wanted to look good so I could get an
opportunity like I have today. As you mature in racing and in the Cup
Series you’re working with other drivers on the race track all year,
not just one weekend, so, naturally, you have to keep in mind that if
you rough them up here, they’re gonna get you back somewhere else.
We’re racing for points and we’re racing for success for Stanley and
DeWalt and everybody else involved with our program over there at
Richard Petty Motorsports, so you naturally have to balance everything
out. This sport doesn’t help the meek. If you’re not aggressive and
you’re not after it, you’re not gonna last very long, so I wouldn’t
say I’ve changed my style, I may have just gotten smarter at it.”

HOW SURPRISED ARE YOU SOMEBODY DIDN’T ASK
YOU TO DRIVE FOR THEM HERE WITH THE SUCCESS YOU’VE HAD HERE IN
NATIONWIDE? “They did, but I just wanted to do it the right way. I
wanted to do it with Richard Petty Motorsports and wanted to field a
car to do it that way. I think it was the right thing to try to do
and it just didn’t work out. We’ll look at it again. There are
plenty more races, big picture stuff, and I’m excited about the Cup
race. At the end of the day, the Cup race is what pays and what
really keeps us all going. To do a Nationwide race would have been
great, but we didn’t want to make it mess with our Cup program.”

Marcos Ambrose, Petty Motorsport Ford

Photo by: Ashley Dickerson, ASP Inc.

WHO
IS THE BEST ROAD RACER OUT HERE NOW? “Me not included, I guess?
Because I’m gonna say me, right? There are a bunch of them. Kurt
Busch did an incredible job at Sonoma and he finished second here last
year, just an incredible driver no matter where he goes. Tony Stewart
is the same, Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon – those guys really stick out
to me. AJ Allmendinger, my teammate, he finished fourth here last
year. Carl Edwards has beaten me quite a lot up in Montreal, so there
are a lot of great drivers. There is no guaranteed success. At this
level, you’ve got Juan Montoya who won it last year. I didn’t even
think about him, so the talent is deep and any one of those guys I
mentioned could win and you wouldn’t be surprised on Sunday, and there
are probably 10 more that you could mention. I don’t think you have
to rely on who is the best out there to win the race, it’s like who
has the best combination on the day, who has the best setup, who has
the team around him, who has good pit stops, who has track position,
how does the caution fall and who has the right luck, so there are a
lot of talented drivers here in road racing. Don’t kid yourself, it
has been years and years since a road race ringer has challenged for
the victory. It’s been years. Since I’ve been here it hasn’t
happened.”